It is now more than 20 years since the workplace safety regulations came into force in January 2003, however businesses are still failing to fulfil their obligations owed under the safety regulations to provide safe workplaces.

a�?Workplacea�? has a wide definition in the safety regulations and your workplace does not just mean the room or place where you actually work, but also corridors, staircases, roads and places used as a means of access from the place of work or where facilities are provided, such as kitchens and bathrooms.

The safety regulations specifically state that there shall be a suitable system for maintaining, including cleaning, the workplace and its equipment so that it is in a safe condition for the people working there.

An employee is entitled to make a claim for compensation to the insurance company of the business if they suffer an accident due to the workplace not being maintained in a safe condition or not being properly cleaned.

A recent example of thisA� is the compensation claim of Isobel Lloyd who worked as a cleaner for the bus company Arriva.A�Ms Lloyd sustained an injury to her foot whilst stepping down from a bus that was parked in an engineering area of a bus depot and a metal splinter went into the side of her foot.A� Unfortunately, Ms Lloyd developed a serious infection in the injured foot.

In Ms Lloyda��s compensation claim the county court judge looked at all of the circumstances of the accident. The place of the accident was a busy engineering works building in the bus depot, therefore it was reasonably foreseeable that waste materials would be left in the area. The bus company could not show that it had an effective system for keeping the engineering area safe for employees who were walking through the area.A�Consequently, the county court judge held that the bus company was in breach of its legal duties to provide Ms Lloyd with a safe workplace and therefore was liable to pay her compensation for the foot injury.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE)is the governmenta��s organization for enforcing the safety regulations. If the business that you work for is ignoring important safety issues you can telephone the Concerns Team at the HSE on phone number 0300 0031647, or send an email to concerns@hse.gsi.gov.uk. There is also a standard online form to complete and send to the HSE that can be found at www.hse.gov.uk/contact/raising-your-concern

The safety law is: the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992